First week of online festive sales witnessed a 55% growth over last year: Report – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The first week of festive sale (15-21 Oct) witnessed a 55% y-o-y sales growth with $4.1 billion (Rs 29,000 crore) goods sold across platforms up from $2.7 billion last year, showed data from consulting firm, RedSeer, which in its pre-festive sale forecasted that online platforms will clock $4 billion sales this year.
“This points to a revival of consumption sentiment amongst Indian shoppers, where they have been shopping online in big numbers driven by massive selection, great prices and the convenience and safety of shopping from home,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, director at RedSeer Consulting.
The biggest growth lever this year was the massive addition of shoppers- the total shoppers during the first week jumped from 28 million last year to 52 million this year (85% y-o-y).
More than 55% of these shoppers came from tier II cities, such as, Asansol, Ludhiana, Dhanbad, Rajkot among others. Given the skew of the shoppers, buyers preferred affordable price ranges this year for almost all product categories.
The platforms enabled affordability this year with aggressive tie-ups through brands and financing deals, coming on the back of a bleak, pandemic-affected year, according to the report.
“Snapdeal’s “Kum Mein Dum” Diwali sale showcased the rapid growth of e-commerce beyond urban centres and brand-centric users. More than 80% of our shoppers chose regional and local brands, prioritizing functional value over discounted brand premiums,” said Rajnish Wahi, senior VP at Snapdeal.
“Sellers from smaller cities played a dominant role with nearly 70% of our orders shipped by sellers located beyond the top 5 metropolitan areas of the country. These include sellers not only from well-established non-metro commercial hubs like Surat & Jaipur, but also very small sellers from Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), Avinashi (Tamil Nadu), Palitana (Gujarat) and many more,” he said.
Smartphones led the sale with 47% of total festive sales, driven by new launches and affordable models. With Rs 1.5 crores worth of smartphones sold every minute across the online platforms in the first week of 2020’s festive sales, enabled by value selection, affordability schemes and fast delivery, showed the report.